Well folks, 2013 is drawing to a close and so may I take a moment to thank you all for your continued support for ATW. We keep on rolling down the years and that is really because of your presence. ATW is a dissenting view of the world and will continue as such in the New Year and so as this year dies and the new one is born…a very Happy New Year to you and your loved ones from me. I’ll see you next year!

Excellent article here on the issue of healthcare that is “free” at point of use and our national political obsession on it;

We are, in other words, still in thrall to the founding principle of the NHS as an almost entirely taxpayer-funded service for which no one is charged when they use it. But while this may have seemed magnificently enlightened in 1948, it is unrealistic today. It has also made a sensible debate about the future of the NHS impossible.

While the “envy of the world” mantra might have been true once, it isn’t any longer. Yet we cleave to a sepia-tinted image of the NHS that should have been dispelled long ago – certainly by recent tales of sub-standard geriatric care and the ongoing crisis in out-of-hours provision.

Reform’s report pointed out that most OECD countries require their own nationals to pay for basic GP visits or even for elements of secondary care, backed by personal insurance. If we won’t even make foreign visitors pay to visit the GP, then we have serious trouble ahead.

We HAVE serious trouble ahead. The politicians and the public connive to maintain the fiction of FREE Healthcare. It doesn’t work in 2013 and it sure as heck will work even less well as we enter 2014!

A 10-year-old Birmingham schoolgirl has highlighted the obesity epidemic facing the city – weighing in at 22 stone 11 lbs.

The unidentified Year 6 pupil was the most extreme example in a list of six similarly aged pupils who weigh more than 19 stone, according to figures released to the Sunday Mercury. The statistics, compiled by the Health and Social Care information centre, and obtained by a Freedom of Information request, show that almost 50 youngsters in the city were reported to have topped 16 stone by the age of 11.

Medics now warn that almost a quarter (21.1 per cent) of Year 6 children are officially obese, while one in ten (10.5 per cent) reception pupils are already classed as obese when they first start school.

So in “starving Britain” – and Birmingham is often cited as a source of great hunger according to the poverty – we have an obesity epidemic. Here’s an image of one of the starving on the way to the local Food Bank..

Bulgarians and Romanians were last night preparing to travel to Britain as restrictions on working here are lifted tomorrow. Almost all flights from Romania to England are full – even though one airline doubled the number to meet demand – with one-way tickets selling for up to £3,000 each. And all tickets for seats on buses leaving the Bulgarian capital of Sofia until January 9 have been snapped up.

Now, WHY do you you think they are SO keen to target the UK ? The climate???

Oh no!!! It didn’t happen. Poor Richard Haas has legged it out of Northern Ireland without getting the sordid little deal he had been brought here to achieve. I’m weeping….

Months of talks to resolve some of the most divisive issues that have hampered the Northern Ireland peace process have broken up without agreement. Northern Ireland’s five main parties met through the night in a final effort to settle differences over parades, flags and the legacy of the Troubles. Former US diplomat Dr Richard Haass, who chaired the talks, said a final agreement was “not there” but there had been “significant progress”.

Sure. So much, in fact, that he won’t be coming back!

It appears that was being proposed (still HIDDEN from the public btw, this always has to be done behind closed doors before the Plebs are informed) was so bad that even the most incompetent of Unionists felt they could not sign up to the deal. I am sure they WANTED to but they know the electoral consequences.

I heard Haas waffle on about the importance of respecting cultural identity even to the degree of how this might impact on National identity. This was coded language for allowing the Irish Tricolour to fly here. I sent him a tweet wondering if he would support Mexicans flying their flag over US Buildings? How about Al Queda flying its flag in New York….or over the White House during Ramadan? Cruelly, he did not respond.

On the issues of Parades and Flags – no progress whatsoever was made, if one can believe Alliance Leader David Ford. Good – because by “progress” he means a further restriction on loyalist parades and impositions on the flying of the Union Flag.

I believe that there was NO grounds whatsoever for these inane talks – so unionists who DID go along with it were foolish. But as 2013 comes to an end, the simple fact is NO deal is way better than the very bad deal that Haas and O’Sullivan sought to hoist upon the unionist people.

So, let’s have a think. Our economy is going backwards to such a degree we are now seen as “the sick man of Europe”. Unemployment is sitting at a record 3.28 MILLION with 25% of under 25 year olds without a job. What to do? I know…

France’s constitutional council has given President Francois Hollande the green light to introduce a 75 per cent tax rate taking aim at the super rich. Under the new plan, which the French council found constitutional, companies will have to pay 50 per cent tax on all salaries exceeding one million euros, or the equivalent of approximately £833, 000. Including social contributions, the rate will effectively stand at 75 per cent,

Great idea. Now smart French people will be motivated to work all the harder, secure in the knowledge that if they rate successful the State will thieve …erm…75% of the income. What can go wrong with that?

Nothing is for free in this life. But if you wave a magic wand and click your heels, it appears health care is an exception. Just look at this lunacy slipped out by Government in the dying embers of 2013;

Migrants will be allowed to see GPs for free in an about-turn by ministers days before Britain’s borders are opened fully to Romanians and Bulgarians. The government will today set out further details about new restrictions on access to the NHS for migrants but doctors surgeries will be excluded from the crackdown. Earlier this year ministers suggested migrants from outside the European Union visiting GPs should pay a fee and surgeries would be given a new obligation to check whether patients were genuine British residents. However, ministers will say today this plan has now been dropped and new patients will not be charged to go to a GP.

So, all those thousands of eastern Europeans peasants with god knows WHAT sort of illnesses will be able to saunter into the local GP surgery and get treated FOR FREE. Except of course its not free and the rest of us will have to pay extra to keep immigrants in good health. The functions of the NATIONAL Health Service are being INTERNATIONALISED as it now is required to treat peasants from all over the vast swathes of the EU for free. It is financial madness, health utopianism, and it will end badly.

Over the past fifty years, the number of people divorcing in the UK has rocketed.

In the year I was born, 1960, there were 23, 868 divorces. Forty years later, as we entered the new century and divorce had become so much more easier thanks to liberal law reform, there were 141,135 divorces. To put it another way, one in three children see their parents separate by the time they are 16. And despite all the honeyed words, it HAS an impact on the children. A new study of the views of children of divorcing parents reveals some tragic detail;

One in 20 had turned to alcohol and one in nine had deliberately wounded themselves. A further 6 per cent had considered suicide, while two of those polled had tried to kill themselves. Almost a third described themselves as devastated by divorce, while one in 12 thought that it meant their mothers and fathers ‘didn’t love them’ and had ‘let them down’. But despite the damage wrought by their parents splitting, few children felt able to speak openly and honestly about their emotions. Nearly 40 per cent said they hid their feelings from their parents because they did not want to upset them.

I fully understand that marriage can be difficult and I also accept that there are circumstances where people must split BUT surely this means that they should take time to consider entering INTO marriage in the first instance and then do all they can to make it a lifetime commitment and in particular if they have children. Divorce is a last resort and I think it is all too easy for husband and wives to walk away and devastate their children’s lives. Marriage is a serious thing, having kids is similar, and It is grim to read of the terrible damage that divorce can bring to them. Marriage is something you work at, it is a kind of work in progress thing that ends in your death! But your children live on and you have a duty to them.

The CBI is a particularly loathsome organisation. Not only is it fervently pro EU but it also can be relied upon to look after the interests of large corporations who have little if any vested interest in the well being of the typical UK worker. That helps explain this sort of mindless populist comment..

The head of the UK’s main business lobby group has said too many people are “stuck” in minimum wage jobs, despite an upturn in the UK economy. John Cridland, director general of the CBI, said that businesses had to deliver “better pay and more opportunities” for their employees. He said most firms would expand their workforce in 2014 for the first time since the recession began. But many people could not see progression in their jobs, he said. Mr Cridland added: “As the financial situation of many firms begins to turn a corner, one of the biggest challenges facing businesses is to deliver growth that will mean better pay and more opportunities for all their employees after a prolonged squeeze.”

Obviously that is ideal. Every profitable employer will seek to raise pay where appropriate. But the reason so many people are “stuck”on a minimum wage is a direct consequence of..yes, the minimum wage. I am certain that had we not IMPOSED such a stupid Marxist requirement on business, then employers would offer much more flexibility around the margin. So the people who suffer most from wage inflexibility are always going to be those who sit on the minimum wage. It has quite a simple economic explanation, as you can read here. Companies can pay more if they make more profit. One good way to raise wages therefore is to stop taxing business so much.

You do not defeat terrorism by rewarding terrorists, regardless of how many bleeding heart liberals argue otherwise. Want to know where that flawed approach leads to? Read UNIONISM DECAYED 1997-2007 - It's my first book and it explains what happens when you seeek to appease terrorists and call it peace. It's available right now for ATW readers so make sure you get your copy by emailing the editor! This is the book that dissents from the herd mentality that doing wrong can lead to being right. It doesn't and this book spells out WHY.

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